


we're gonna rattle this ghost town

by may-be-emma-lee (LittleMissLiesmith)



Series: hell of a good universe [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Series/Season 13, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And how, Crossover, Curtain Fic, Gen, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Slice of Life, Vignette, and a really fuckin weird one at that, for one at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 06:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissLiesmith/pseuds/may-be-emma-lee
Summary: There are newcomers to the Valley. They're probably the strangest sort of newcomers that it's possible to have.





	we're gonna rattle this ghost town

**Author's Note:**

> This is, somehow, the most self-indulgent thing I've written, and I wrote A History of Mondays so that's saying something.
> 
> title was changed to an Anna Sun lyric.

 

The Winchesters moved in on a Wednesday morning in June; Abigail first met one of them on Friday, when Mary Winchester came into the store to look at strawberry bed planters.

Abigail tried very hard to pretend she wasn’t staring. The arrival of the Winchesters—three siblings, and a man who didn’t look related to them along with his son—had caused a hell of a stir in the valley. No one knew where they’d come from; the eldest of the siblings had shown up on Lewis’s doorstep and paid the much-marked-down price of the old farm and land in cash. The five of them had moved in within the day, and Abigail had stayed quiet as Caroline and Pierre discussed it over dinner.

“I just don’t see how they’ll manage,” Caroline said, pushing her green beans around on her plate. “Four grown adults and a teenage boy, all in that old house? I hope they hire Robin to fix it up soon. I didn't even realize it was livable.”

“I saw the boy,” said Pierre. “He seemed to be hitting it off with Sam.”

Abigail’s hand tightened around her fork. Some kid trying to squeeze into their tight-knit group—Sam might be oblivious, but she and Seb weren’t about to let him force his way in.

“Do you think they’ll come by for supplies soon?” Caroline wondered aloud.

“Unless they go to Joja Mart,” Abigail muttered.

Pierre fixed his stormy gaze on her and she cringed. “You don’t move to a small town just to shop at Joja Mart. They’ll be here.”

“I’m just saying not to get your hopes up.” Abigail scowled. “Five people aren’t exactly going to revitalize a dying economy on their own.”

Abigail got sentenced to extra time helping at the store for that. It might’ve been a good thing too, since otherwise she’d have waited even longer to see the newcomers—or one of them, anyway. Mary Winchester, the only girl—and  _ that  _  had to be fun. Abigail had been in Sam and Seb’s rooms, and if those two were in any way representative of their gender as a whole, the cottage was probably a cesspool of despair and B.O. She didn’t look too bothered, though—she had a small  _ Pocket Guide to Planting _ open and kept looking between it and the planters.

“You can mix and match those,” Abigail found herself saying, almost without thinking. “It’s a bit late for planting anything for this season, but…”

Mary looked up and smiled at her. “Oh, I figured that.” She straightened from her position crouched on the floor, brushing a lock of curly blond hair out of her eyes. “I just thought that if anything could be planted it would be better than nothing. My—Sam, my brother, wants to start a kitchen garden.”

“That place used to be a farm, you know.” Abigail leaned against the shelf.

“We know. It’s just a bit much to start with. And even then, we wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I mean, my dad would buy the produce from you.” She shrugged. “Sell it to the townsfolk and such. The last guy who lived here ended up running a pretty decent-sized place and more than getting by, at least as far as I remember. I was pretty young when he died.”

“That explains why the property was so cheap,” Mary muttered. She held out her hand. “I’m Mary.”

“Abigail.” She didn’t bother explaining that she already knew who Mary was. “My dad owns this place.”

“Abigail.” Mary smiled. It reminded Abigail of Caroline’s smiles, maternal and knowing—though Mary had to be younger than Caroline. “What a lovely name. Say, Abigail, do you think you could help me out? We need plants that beginners can handle, to put in as soon as possible.”

“I…” Abigail glanced around. Pierre was still out. “Yeah. Sure.”

Twenty minutes later, Abigail was ringing up the several starter boxes she had helped Mary pick out—strawberries (“they probably won’t have fruit until next year”), cucumbers, squash, beans, several tomato varieties, cabbage and carrots, herbs—when Pierre returned. He looked from Abigail to Mary and back, then rubbed at his eyes. “Er. Did you find everything alright?”

“Oh, yes.” Mary smiled again. “Abigail was very helpful.”

“…Really?” The surprise in Pierre’s voice grated at Abigail. “Alright, then. You, uh, have a nice day.”

Mary put the last of the boxes onto the little rented cart. “Thank you again, Abigail,” she called as she wheeled it out the door.

Pierre stared after her a moment, then looked at Abigail. “Er…thanks for helping out today, Abby.” He cleared his throat. “I…you can take the rest of the day off.”

Abigail almost grinned. Pierre had the emotional range of a teaspoon, but she’d been his daughter long enough to know what “I’m proud of you” sounded like.

And it was nice, sometimes.

-O-

It didn’t take long at all for it to become apparent that the Winchester siblings were antisocial. This suited Pelican Town, which hadn’t been at all at ease with the idea of newcomers, just fine. Their friend and his son, though? They were out and about almost every other day.

In defense of the friend, he seemed just as reluctant to be friendly with Pelican Town as Pelican Town was to be friendly with him. His son was the problem. Overly social, overly cheerful, and not seeming to quite understand that no one really wanted to talk to him, he’d chat with anyone who would listen and several people who wouldn’t--and against themselves, some people were actually starting to like the kid. 

Pam was not one of those people.

Penny was actually sort of inclined to like him before she even met him, largely because anyone Pam didn’t like was probably someone worth knowing. Apparently he’d shown up at the saloon one evening and hadn’t taken a single hint that no one wanted to talk to him. 

“Damned kid,” Pam groused when she returned home in the evening, shoving past Penny to collapse on the couch. “Can’t take a hint. A lot like you.”

Penny said nothing and looked down at the plate she was rinsing. 

She didn’t get a chance to meet him for a few days after that--too busy trying to keep the trailer in a semblance of cleanliness, making lesson plans for the kids, and running to and from Maru’s house to try to fix the air conditioner in time for the weather to warm up. In fact, it was entirely an accident that she ran into them the first time, on the way back from Maru’s with another attempt at an air conditioner in her arms. 

They were sitting outside the old community center, the teenager inspecting the boarded up windows, his father sitting on the steps with his knees tucked up. 

He was wearing a trenchcoat. It was eighty degrees outside. 

“...that place has been closed for years,” Penny found herself saying. 

The boy turned around to look at her. “I know!” He smiled. It was an odd smile--like he wasn’t used to it--but perfectly genuine, almost childlike. “I just wanted to see if there was a way in. You’re not going to tell, are you?”

“...no, I suppose not.” Penny put down the air conditioner and wandered over, peering in through a hole in the wood. “What are you going to do?”

“Get inside. If I can. It’s a nice building. I want to see what it was.”

“It was the community center.” Penny could see the old office through the hole, a rusted-out vault built into the wall, moth-eaten curtains partially obscuring her already dismal view. “Sort of a catch-all place for activities. The mayor’s office was here, people would get together for parties, that sort of thing. I guess they ran out of the will to keep it going--a long time ago, before I was born. Before Lewis was the mayor, even. He’s always complaining about not having his own office.”

“Why don’t they fix it up?” The boy had managed to prise apart two of the boards over the window, and his eyes darted side to side, taking in the office. “You have a carpenter. She’s so nice, she’s helping us while we try to figure out how to get more room in the house.”

“No money for it. Local economies are...fragile. And then the Joja Mart moved in a few years ago, and after that I guess it was all over. That place basically holds up the town. If it ever were to go down, or even just close up for somewhere with more people, we’d need to have a good plan in place--and we don’t have any plan. We definitely don’t have the money to fix this place up.” Penny pulled away from the window. “I’m Penny. You’re the guys who just moved into the old Petranovitch place, aren’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t know it was called that. I’m Jack Kline.” He gave another of those childishly dazzling smiles. “It’s really nice to meet you, Penny. That’s my father, Castiel.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kline.” Penny nodded at the man. He startled, almost as if he wasn’t expecting her to speak to him.

“Oh. Er. Nice to meet you too, I suppose.” He cleared his throat. “Jack, we should be going. We don’t want to take up any more of her time.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” said Penny. “I was just taking this home.” She kicked the air conditioner lightly. Jack stared at it, fascinated.

“What is it?”

“....it’s an air conditioner. It’s old, I guess. Maru fixed it up for me, ours has been broken and it’s getting hot.” That was a lot to tell a stranger. Penny shifted slightly, tugging at her ear awkwardly. “But you should be careful around here. This place is falling apart. You could get hurt. Or someone could see you who actually cares about what buildings are condemned.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Penny.” Jack’s smile never faltered. 

“We are sorry to have kept you so long,” said Mr. Kline. His voice was odd and stilted, and Penny wondered if English was his second language--or maybe he had some sort of speech impediment. She should learn how to recognize that sort of thing, if she ever wanted to teach more children than Jas and Vincent. It would probably be rude to ask, though. “Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you, Penny!” Jack waved at her as Mr. Kline placed a hand on his shoulder, gently guiding him around towards the town again.

Penny watched them go, then hefted the air conditioner up and continued on her way back to the trailer by the river. 

Sort of bizarre, really.

-O-

Alex couldn’t sleep.

This wasn’t that unusual, really. There were more nights than he liked to admit when even the exhaustion of a workout couldn’t calm him down enough to doze off, or where he woke from nightmares he couldn’t remember. On nights like those, as long as it wasn’t too cold or raining, he always did the same thing; shrugged on his letterman jacket over his pajamas, put on his shoes (no socks), grabbed his swim bag, and slipped out into the still-cool May night air, heading up the hill towards the bathhouse. 

A swim would clear his head, the steam would help him relax, and the walk there and back in the night was...soothing. The whole town quiet save for the buzz of insects, dark on the mountain but for fireflies. 

Alex entered the bathhouse quietly. It was empty, but being loud would do his restlessness no good. He changed quickly into swim trunks and flip flops, the rubbery sound of the shoes slapping the slightly grimy tiles as he headed through the doors into the pool itself echoing. 

He was just about to slip into the water and disappear into the warm steam when he saw something at the far end of the pool.

For the first time in his three-AM excursions, Alex was not alone in the bathhouse. 

“...Hello?” His voice echoed in the tiles, making him sound entirely more uncertain than he liked. “Hello.” There. That was better. Confident, yet curious.

The figure at the far end jerked suddenly, and though Alex couldn’t make out their expression in the dim lighting, they seemed as startled to see him as he was to see them. “Oh, bollocks,” they said, a distinctly masculine voice with an odd accent echoing across the pool. It wasn’t anything Alex had heard in the Republic, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t Gotoro. Maybe it was from the Kingdom? He tried and failed to remember if he’d ever actually met anyone from the Kingdom. 

The person was still talking. “Terribly sorry.” He didn’t sound very sorry. “I wasn’t exactly expecting anyone else to be here. I’m not supposed to be here myself.”

“Neither was I. Expecting anyone to be here, that is.” Alex decided to hell with caution and walked around the pool. Slowly the figure solidified out of the dim light and steam, revealing a stocky man in a rather old-fashioned bathing suit with a top, close-cropped hair, and in desperate need of a shave. “Who are you?”

“Not important. You won’t be seeing me again, if the Winchesters have their way.” He said ‘Winchesters’ like it was a particularly nasty breed of slug.

“Oh, the guys who moved into the old property? Wait, I’m pretty sure there’s only--” He went over them in his head. “Okay, I’m pretty sure you’re not one of them.”

“Not one that you would know.” The man scoffed. “Keeping me some secret, aren’t they? Some way of rescue, saying I can stay and then hiding me away in the damn bathtub.”

“...so there’s  _ more  _ of you?”

“I’m the only secret they’ve got, so technically, no.”

Alex just stared at him. “Why are you in the bathhouse at three in the morning?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I asked first.”

“Alright, fair. The bathtub is currently occupied by my sleeping arrangements, and I desperately needed to get out of that house for a while. There’s only so long you can spend in a twenty-by-twenty kitchen with Team Free Will And Love before you start to go a little mad, after all.”

“...I come here sometimes, at night.” There was something about the man, or maybe it was just about being the only people in the bathhouse at three in the morning (which probably should have made Alex more worried than he was, but whatever, the man didn’t look at all tough and he could take him), which made Alex unheeding of any of the usual glib answers he’d give. “When I can’t sleep. Are you going to be here a lot?”

“Dunno.” The man kicked up a splash of water, and Alex sat perpendicular to him, the two of them on the corner with their feet in the warm water of the pool. “If I can get out.”

“Why are they keeping you in there?”

“They don’t trust me.”

“Why not?”

“They have their reasons.” The man huffed. “You can call me Crowley.”

“I’m Alex.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Finally, Alex spoke. “Do you want me to, you know. Tell anyone that you’re there? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to keep people locked up in the house.”

“No need. I’ll convince them soon enough.” Crowley dipped a hand into the water, letting it run over his fingers. “This is a strange little town you have.”

“I guess so. I’ll be out of here soon enough.”

“For what?”

“I’m going to become a professional athlete.”

Crowley snorted. “Good luck with that, sweetheart.”

Alex glared. “I don’t need  _ luck _ .”

“I could’ve helped you, at one point.” He sounded almost wistful. Pensive. “Not anymore.”

“Why, were you an agent or a coach or something?”

“Or something,” Crowley agreed. 

Silence fell once more over the room. 

-O-

There was a stranger in the kitchen.

Sebastian considered, briefly, going back downstairs, and was just about to do so when Robin spotted him and lit up. “Sebby! You’re joining us for breakfast?!”

Damnit. She sounded so happy about it. 

Sebastian slouched over and unceremoniously dumped himself into one of the mismatched chairs. (Well, mismatched cushions. Robin had made all the chairs herself, then dug the cushions up from somewhere). “...hey, Ma?”

“Yeah, Sebby?” She beamed at him, pouring a bowl of some sugary Joja brand cereal. 

“...who’s that?”

The man Sebastian didn’t know looked up at that from where he was kneeling in front of the stove. “Sup.”

“This is Dean. He’s fixing the stove for us.” Robin passed Sebastian the cereal and sat down next to him. “He moved into the farm, you know, the Petranovitch place.”

“Oh.” He thought he’d heard Abigail talking about someone at the Petranovitch place, but then, he hadn’t left his room much for the past week or two. “...why’s he fixing the stove?”

“Cause I can,” said Dean, now wedged between the stove (pulled out from the wall) and the counter. “And your mom’s paying me.”

“...right.” Sebastian watched with a furrowed brow. “Is this your job?”

“Nah. Haven’t got one here yet. And there’s only two cars in town, so I can’t even do what I’d prefer.” He sounded annoyed. Sebastian looked down at his cereal.

“You know, Dean,” said Robin, watching him wriggle between the stove and the wall, “if this works, I could use another hand with my carpentry business. To hook up the wiring and do the technical side of things. I’ve always done it myself, of course, but it could really speed up the process if I had another hand.”

“What? Oh, sure.” His voice was slightly muffled. “I mean, maybe you’ll want to think that over a little, don’t wanna go making any impulse decisions, but.”

He stood and squeezed his way out, then pushed the stove back into place. “Alright, that should do it,” he muttered, turning on each of the burners in turn. 

Sebastian watched, mildly impressed, as the three of five burners that hadn’t worked since Demetrius and Maru did an experiment with sodium hydroxide and marshmallow fluff turned on and flared up with only a bit of protest. 

Dean looked rather pleased with himself. “There you go, Robin, good as new.”

“Thanks for the help, Dean.” Robin dumped her now-empty bowl in the sink and grabbed her wallet from her jacket pocket, digging out some gil. “The job offer’s open, if you want it.”

“I’ll give you a few days to think it over, and I just might take you up on that.” He grinned at her, then at Sebastian. Sebastian just stared. “Well, you’re a cheerful one.”

He shrugged and took another bite of his cereal. “I guess.”

“I’ve got a friend who’s a bit like you, you know.” His tone was conversational. “Quiet and out of the way. You might like him. I’ll tell him to stop by sometime--I know he could use some fresh air. It’s a bit cramped in there. No offense, Robin.”

“None taken. Hey, if you take me up on that job it’s one step closer to having a proper house…”

Dean laughed, full-bodied but almost a little feigned. Like he’d forgotten how to really laugh and had to force it. “Yeah. See you around, Robin.”

“Thank you again, Dean.”

When Dean left, Sebastian looked at Robin. “Why didn’t you just get Demetrius to fix the stove?”

“He’s a chemist, not a mechanic. Dean said that he was a mechanic at one point. You should have mentioned your motorcycle, you could have been friends.”

“Mom, he’s fifteen years older than me at least.”

“So? Age is no barrier to friendship, Sebby.” Robin sat down heavily and sighed. “You’ve been spending less time with Abigail and Sam.”

“I had a project deadline coming up.”

“For two weeks?”

“It was an important project, why are you so concerned about it anyway?”

“Because you’re my son, and I care about you.”

Sebastian scowled. “I’ll go visit Sam tonight if it makes you happy, I guess.”

“It would make me feel better, yes.” Robin sighed. “You know, they have a boy who’s not much younger than you. Jack, I think his name is. You could talk to him too. He doesn’t know you yet.”

“You mean he doesn’t know what I’m like yet. What he’s supposed to think about me.”

“That’s not--”

“That’s exactly what you meant.” He pushed his chair back. “I have a deadline to meet. No one bother me today, alright?”

He left the kitchen and retreated down to the basement, locking the door behind him and drawing up his chair to the computer, staring at the lines of code in front of him.

A mechanic and a kid his age, huh. 

How many people were up at the Petranovitch place, anyway? And where the hell did they come from?

-O-

Dean volunteered to build the garden beds, even after insisting that he wanted nothing to do with Sam’s hippie plants. 

It took a couple days. Cas and Jack joined in on the second day, laying down the palette wood that Dean got from Robin, nailing it into place several inches into the ground, digging out the clay-like ground and filling it with topsoil from the other side of the property. And after a bit there were beds. Kind of shitty beds. A little lopsided, poorly spaced, and made of mismatched wood. 

Dean held out his hand for a high-five to Cas. Jack was the one to accept, and Dean didn’t scowl at him. 

Mary started planting the next day. Strawberry starters, lettuce, beans. The beans had to have trellises, which was what Dean started work on next, putting together progressively nicer structures of wooden dowels and chicken wire and staking them next to the tiny bean plants. 

Cas went to the library with Jack and came back with a book called the  _ Beekeeper’s Bible _ . 

“I think that’s blasphemy,” said Dean when he first saw Cas reading it, curled into the corner that he had made his nest in. Cas was funny like that. The rest of them had sleeping bags rolled up against the wall of the kitchen during the day, and the chairs put up on the table so the bags could stretch out at night; but Cas had unzipped his sleeping bag entirely and made a small nest in the corner, and it just stayed like that. He slept curled up and somehow didn’t wake up sore. Or if he didn’t, he didn’t tell anyone.

Crowley was still sleeping in the bathtub. 

Cas looked up at him. “Is it blasphemy if a world’s god is not your own?”

“So there’s a God here?”

“Not a capital-G God. Not like my father. Lowercase-g God.” Cas looked down at the book. “The library has a religious text, if you have any interest.”

“Not really, no.” Dean looked curiously at the book. “Learning anything?”

“...I think we should set up a few hives,” said Cas after a moment. “I’ve been reading up on trade records for the area. Jack’s been listening in on conversations. Honey is very much in demand in the area, as are all of the other byproducts of a hive. And Robin was complaining the other day about a swarm up in the mountains. If I want to keep bees, now’s the time to do it--who knows when another wild swarm would show up?”

“...do they not have the Internet here?” Dean asked after a minute.

“They do. But evidently there’s been difficulties with any online delivery service, or postal service, in the area for the past several years. Due to the war going on, there’s shortages. Scarcity.”

“Huh.” Dean blinked. “Well, let me see that. It can’t be too hard to put a hive together.”

Castiel beamed.

The first hive was up within a day, between the two of them. A little lopsided, a little mismatched, but Castiel was still smiling when he put on gloves and a makeshift veil and went up through the backwoods to the mountain to collect the swarm. 

Two weeks after they had moved into the run down old house, Dean sat on the porch at ten o’clock at night with a bottle of beer and watched the little sprouts sway in the night breeze. A few yards past the beds, the surface of the little pond glistened in the moonlight; in the distance, the last light at the ranch that was their closest neighbor clicked out. 

Behind him, the front door opened and shut, and Dean felt someone sit down beside him. He didn’t have to look over. “Hey, mom.”

“Hey, honey.” Mary’s voice was quiet and tired. “You should come inside. Sam wants everyone up early tomorrow to help weed and stake the beans.”

“Sam can bite me. I’m helping ‘cause I want to, and if I don’t want to wake up at five AM for it, then that’s me.” He leaned back slightly, his palm pressed to the rough boards of the porch as he tilted his head back to look at the sky. “The stars are different here. Did’ja notice?”

“...no.” Beside him, Mary shifted--presumably looking up as well. “I didn’t really….even at home, I didn’t look at the stars. There were....more important things to do.”

“Yeah, guess so. Cas is the one who pointed it out to me anyway. The constellations, they’re all different. But weird-different. They’re in different places--they’re the same constellations, but at the wrong time of year for it.” Dean exhaled slowly. “This is the only world Jack knows. Sam pointed that out today.”

“He mentioned it to me, too. I think he’s...concerned.” Mary turned to look at Dean. He still didn’t look at her. “Jack may look older, but he knows so little. He needs us to be a family to him.”

“You get where I’m coming from, though. I don’ get how Sam can be so calm about it. He has an even worse track record with the kid’s dad than I do.”

“Maybe that’s why. He knows the--he knows Lucifer better than you do. He knows that Jack isn’t his father. We don’t have to be our parents.”

“Funny, coming from you.”

Mary snorted slightly. “Dean...this is the only world Jack knows. Sam’s right. This is the only  _ family _ he knows. I think he wants it to be...a real family.”

“And if we manage to get back home?” 

Mary tugged at his hair, pulling him to finally look her in the eyes. “We’ve been here for months, Dean. We bought a damn house. We’re…” She took a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut momentarily. “We all know the truth. We all know what the situation is.”

“...yeah.” Dean looked away again, staring at the porch planks on his other side, digging at a splinter. “I guess so.”

“That doesn’t mean we should give up. Just that we should change our tactics.” She rested a hand on his forearm. “I’m not going to lie, Dean. I like it here. Sam loves it here. I think Cas and Jack do, too. And Crowley...who could say, but he hasn’t been complaining.”

“...I like it here, too.” His voice was quiet. It felt like defeat. Like giving up something that he hadn’t wanted to give up just yet, out of pure spite. “I don’t want to.”

“I know.” She squeezed his forearm. “We can’t go back.”

“We can’t go back,” he echoed. 

One more squeeze and Mary released his arm, standing up. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

The door swung shut behind her. Dean stared out at the strange stars. 

Eventually, he got up and went back inside.

**Author's Note:**

> This will definitely be a series. If anyone's reading at all, I'd love to hear from you. I want someone to talk to about this. I have a lot of ideas.


End file.
